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Make bad governments pay for causing their citizens to flee

The scenes are heartbreaking, such as those of sick and dying children on the shores of the EU. The Economist estimates that 23,000 have lost their lives since 2000 attempting to enter the European continent. The Gatestone Institute reports that more than 175,000 have applied for asylum during the past 12 months. Many, many more are entering illegally.

Across the Atlantic, the Migration Policy Institute  notes that “In 2013, approximately 41.3 million immigrants [legal and illegal] lived in the United States, an all-time high for a nation historically built on immigration. The United States remains a popular destination attracting about 20 percent of the world’s international migrants, even as it represents less than 5 percent of the global population. Immigrants accounted for 13 percent of the total 316 million U.S. residents; adding the U.S.-born children (of all ages) of immigrants means that approximately 80 million people, or one-quarter of the overall U.S. population, is either of the first or second generation.”

Impoverished families crossing the U.S. southern border present wrenching views. The Pew Research Institute  estimates that there are approximately 11.3 million illegals in the U.S. Pew also notes that “President Obama’s executive action on immigration, announced Nov. 20, 2014, would among other things expand deportation relief to almost half the unauthorized immigrant population, though this part of the program is on hold due to a lawsuit to stop the move.” Unauthorized immigrants make up 5.1% of the U.S. labor force.

The reactions to this wave of humanity range from  an abundance of sympathy, such as that exhibited by President Obama’s very lax enforcement of American immigration law, to the exclusionary policies advocated by some European political groups. Even Pope Francis has weighed in, urging Christian charity for the masses on the move.

The United Nations Refugee Agency has noted:

“Since the late 1970s, the international community has been well aware of the severe impact that large scale refugee populations can have on the social, economic and political life of host developing countries… From the moment of arrival, refugees compete with the local citizens for scarce resources such as land, water, housing, food and medical services. Over time, their presence leads to more substantial demands on natural resources, education and health facilities, energy, transportation, social services and employment. They may cause inflationary pressures on prices and depress wages. In some instances, they can significantly alter the flow of goods and services within the society as a whole and their presence may have implications for the host country’s balance of payment and undermine structural adjustment initiatives… The heavy price that host countries have to pay in providing asylum to refugees is now widely recognized.”

But, perhaps for reasons of political correctness and an embarrassment of past instances of colonialism, the actual causes of illegal immigration and the only workable solutions to the crisis remain largely unspoken.
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The poverty, war and other conditions from which most of the refugees flee are largely not the results of a natural disaster, such as a famine or flood, but from bad regimes.

The fact is, the governments from which most of the current waves of immigrants hail from are corrupt, incompetent, repressive, or adhere to economic philosophies that simply don’t work. Their misdeeds and/or ineptness force many of their citizenry to seek refuge and sustenance elsewhere. In essence, the populations of the United States and Europe are forced to pay for the stupidity or malfeasance of other nations.

DW, discussing the lack of candor in Africa about the reasons for the immigration crisis, noted:

“Tens of thousands of refugees risk their lives trying to get to Europe. Surprisingly this sort of news rarely makes front page in Africa. ‘The migrant boat tragedy is not just Europe’s problem,’ a title by the ‘Daily Maverick’, a South African daily, silently screams.

“The African Union communications department has been very busy lately, issuing statements on subjects as varied and diverse as the Sudanese elections, the killing of Ethiopian citizens by ‘Islamic State’ (IS) in Libya, the xenophobic violence in South Africa and the marketing of Africa’s ‘Agenda 2063’ to Polish investors. Nothing, however, on the boatloads of Africans risking everything to escape the continent. Nothing on the hundreds of corpses floating in the Mediterranean.”

There should be an international discussion on placing penalties and sanctions on governments that create the conditions that cause many of their citizens to flee. While some may claim that this constitutes interference in the internal affairs of the nations affected, it is appropriate, pragmatic and, indeed, humanitarian to eliminate, at the source, the conditions which give rise to the necessity of mass immigration.

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Attempts continue to impose left wing bias in education

During 2014 and 2015, numerous scholars protested the College Boards’ attempt to impose a radical new American History advanced placement curriculum. (The College Board is a private New York organization that administers advanced placement courses.) The revised coursework reflects a leftist version of American history that emphasizes a negative attitude towards the U.S. and for the most part omits major figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King, Jr. The material gave little recognition to America’s contributions to defeating the forces of tyranny in the World Wars, or the nation’s pivotal role in raising economic standards.

The curriculum bowed to the Progressive’s lack of belief in American exceptionalism.

The issue became so controversial and partisan that the Republican National Committee weighed in on the debate, arguing that the College Board’s new framework “deliberately distorts and/or edits out important historical events…and reflects a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.”

Think Progress reported that a number of state legislators across the country attempted to pass laws prohibiting government funding from being used to advance the politicized course revision. Calls were also made to withhold federal funding. Critics were concerned that David Coleman, a key figure behind the Common Core standards, was involved in pushing the biased material.

Educators from the National Association of Scholars  published the following letter after the new material was released:

The teaching of American history in our schools faces a grave new risk, from an unexpected source. Half a million students each year take the Advanced Placement (AP) exam in U.S. History. The framework for that exam has been dramatically changed, in ways certain to have negative consequences.

We wish to express our opposition to these modifications. The College Board’s 2014 Advanced Placement Examination shortchanges students by imposing on them an arid, fragmentary, and misleading account of American history. We favor instead a robust, vivid, and content-rich account of our unfolding national drama, warts and all, a history that is alert to all the ways we have disagreed and fallen short of our ideals, while emphasizing the ways that we remain one nation with common ideals and a shared story.

The Advanced Placement exam has become a fixture in American education since its introduction after the Second World War, and many colleges and universities award credits based on students’ AP scores. In fact, for many American students the AP test effectively has taken the place of the formerly required U.S. history survey course in colleges and universities, making its structure and contents a matter of even greater importance from the standpoint of civic education. Many of these students will never take another American history course. So it matters greatly what they learn in their last formal encounter with the subject.

Educators and the public have been willing to trust the College Board to strike a sensible balance among different approaches to the American past. Rather than issuing detailed guidelines, the College Board has in the past furnished a brief topical outline for teachers, leaving them free to choose what to emphasize. In addition, the previous AP U.S. History course featured a strong insistence on content, i.e., on the students’ acquisition of extensive factual knowledge of American history. But with the new 2014 framework, the College Board has put forward a lengthy 134-page document which repudiates that earlier approach, centralizes control, deemphasizes content, and promotes a particular interpretation of American history.

This interpretation downplays American citizenship and American world leadership in favor of a more global and transnational perspective. The College Board has long enjoyed an effective monopoly on advanced placement testing. The changes made in the new framework expose the danger in such a monopoly. The result smacks of an “official” account of the American past. Local, state, and federal policymakers may need to explore competitive alternatives to the College Board’s current domination of advanced-placement testing.
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The new framework is organized around such abstractions as “identity,” “peopling,” “work, exchange, and technology,” and “human geography” while downplaying essential subjects, such as the sources, meaning, and development of America’s ideals and political institutions, notably the Constitution. Elections, wars, diplomacy, inventions, discoveries—all these formerly central subjects tend to dissolve into the vagaries of identity-group conflict. The new framework scrubs away all traces of what used to be the chief glory of historical writing—vivid and compelling narrative—and reduces history to an bloodless interplay of abstract and impersonal forces. Gone is the idea that history should provide a fund of compelling stories about exemplary people and events. No longer will students hear about America as a dynamic and exemplary nation, flawed in many respects, but whose citizens have striven through the years toward the more perfect realization of its professed ideals. The new version of the test will effectively marginalize important ways of teaching about the American past, and force American high schools to teach U.S. history from a perspective that self-consciously seeks to de-center American history and subordinate it to a global and heavily social-scientific perspective.

There are notable political or ideological biases inherent in the 2014 framework, and certain structural innovations that will inevitably result in imbalance in the test, and bias in the course. Chief among these is the treatment of American national identity. The 2010 framework treated national identity, including “views of the American national character and ideas about American exceptionalism” as a central theme. But the 2014 framework makes a dramatic shift away from that emphasis, choosing instead to grant far more extensive attention to “how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. history with special attention given to the formation of gender, class, racial and ethnic identities.” The new framework makes a shift from “identity” to “identities.” Indeed, the new framework is so populated with examples of American history as the conflict between social groups, and so inattentive to the sources of national unity and cohesion, that it is hard to see how 3 students will gain any coherent idea of what those sources might be. This does them, and us, an immense disservice.

We believe that the study of history should expose our young students to vigorous debates about the nature of American exceptionalism, American identity, and America’s role in the world. Such debates are the warp and woof of historical understanding. We do not seek to reduce the education of our young to the inculcation of fairy tales, or of a simple, whitewashed, heroic, even hagiographical nationalist narrative. Instead, we support a course that fosters informed and reflective civic awareness, while providing a vivid sense of the grandeur and drama of its subject. A formal education in American history serves young people best by equipping them for a life of deep and consequential membership in their own society. The College Board’s 2014 framework sadly neglects this essential civic purpose of education in history. We can, and must, do better.

Some revisions to the course were made in July following the protests, although critics still maintain that the curriculum continues to reflect a left-wing partisan viewpoint.

To a significant extent, the new material is an outgrowth of the use of a textbook, “A People’s History of the United States,” written by the Marxist author Howard Zinn, in many schools.

Writing for Hillsdale College’s Imprimis publication, Wilfred M. McClay discussed the controversy, placing it in the context of a much broader ideological battle:

“The audacity of this agenda could not be clearer. It is nothing less than a drive to expel the nation-state, and completely reconstitute public consciousness around a radically different idea of the purpose of history. It substitutes a whole new set of loyalties, narratives, heroes, and notable events—perhaps directed to some post-national entity, or to a mere abstraction—for the ones inhering in civic life as it now exists. It would mean a complete rupture with the past, and with all admired things that formerly associated themselves with the idea of the nation, including the sacrifices of former generations…

“It represents a lurch in the direction of more centralized control, as well as an expression of a distinct agenda—an agenda that downplays comprehensive content knowledge in favor of interpretive finesse, and that seeks to deemphasize American citizenship and American world leadership in favor of a more global and transnational perspective… It gives only the most cursory attention to traditional subjects, such as the sources, meaning, and development of America’s fundamental political institutions, notably the Constitution, and the narrative accounting of political events, such as elections, wars, and diplomacy.

“Various critics have noted the political and ideological biases inherent in the 2014 framework, as well as structural innovations that will result in imbalance in the test and bias in the course. … the new framework is so populated with examples of American history as the conflict between social groups, and so inattentive to the sources of national unity and cohesion, that it is hard to see how students will gain any coherent idea of what those sources might be. This does them, and all Americans, an immense disservice. Instead of combating fracture, it embraces it.”

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Should the Federal Communications Commission be abolished?

In an exclusive interview with the New York Analysis of Policy & Government’s Vernuccio/Novak Report radio program on August 26, Brian C. Anderson, author of the study “Against the Obamanet” called for the abolition of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and strong opposition to the variety of current proposals to regulate the internet or to surrender control of it to a United Nations organization heavily influenced by nations seeking to provide government censorship of it.

Opposition to the FCC’s moves under the Obama Administration to control the internet can be based on First Amendment grounds. Opposing providing greater authority to international bodies should be based on a study of the mindset of several powerful nations whose attitude towards free speech—especially on the internet—is diametrically opposed to America’s.

The Sratfor research organization has forecast that Russia and China will maintain a unified front to challenge the West’s conception of the Internet, and that Moscow and Beijing will be able to extend government control on their respective domestic Internet realms.

According to Stratfor, “A Russian law regarding data localization of Internet communications goes into effect Sept. 1 with the stated intent of safeguarding Russian citizens from the growing threat of foreign interference, particularly from the United States, in cyberspace. The law effectively requires companies obtaining information online from Russian citizens to store that data on servers physically located in the country. Initially, companies like Google, Facebook or Twitter would be required to move or build data centers in Russia if they wish to conduct business online there, otherwise Russian Internet users presumably would be blocked from accessing the company’s content.

“Foreign technology industries and civic activists have opposed the law, which Russian President Vladimir Putin signed in July 2014, but it addresses Russia’s network security concerns in several ways. The law gives Russia another tool for controlling the flow of information within its borders to tamp down on dissidence. Moreover, the Kremlin wants to closely monitor the flow of information into and out of Russia through the Internet to protect its Internet space from foreign actors, whether state or non-state.”

Moreover, a definite easy fast or simply controlled eating regimen on top of a periodic juicy acai will often aid when you order cialis check need to detoxify most of the physique created by intoxicating tendencies. It must be online prescription viagra without stored away from attain regarding youngsters. Spam is categorized by these filters using a mathematical function called cheap viagra 100mg probability. Online stores offer medicines for issues online cialis soft like men’s health women’s health, skin care problems etc. This is not a new development. In 2012, The Computer & Communications Industry Association noted that “Undemocratic governments like China, Russia, and Iran seek greater control over the Internet, and are pursuing this objective in intergovernmental agencies worldwide, especially those headquartered in Geneva. Governments, industry, and NGOs worldwide must unite to oppose government-led Internet governance. CCIA opposes more government control of the Internet, and supports existing multi-stakeholder models… Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and others are promoting a ‘cyber-arms control’ treaty as a guise to create international legal ‘cover’ for classifying dis-favorable information as a military threat, and responding accordingly. Many of the same states are urging the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) – which traditionally develops essential standards for cross-border telecommunications – to indirectly expand its remit into Internet governance, using alarmist, hot-button issues like cybercrime and Internet porn…”

The Wall Street Journal reported in August that several years ago “As social media helped topple regimes in the Middle East and northern Africa, a senior colonel in [China’s] People’s Liberation Army publicly warned that an Internet dominated by the U.S. threatened to overthrow China’s Communist Party. Ye Zheng and a Chinese researcher, writing in the state-run China Youth Daily, said the Internet represented a new form of global control, and the U.S. was a “shadow” present during some of those popular uprisings… Four years after… China is paying a lot of attention. Its government is pushing to rewrite the rules of the global Internet, aiming to draw the world’s largest group of Internet users away from an interconnected global commons and to increasingly run parts of the Internet on China’s terms. It envisions a future in which governments patrol online discourse like border-control agents, rather than let the U.S., long the world’s digital leader, dictate the rules. President Xi Jinping…is moving to exert influence over virtually every part of the digital world in China… In doing so, Mr. Xi is trying to fracture the international system that makes the Internet basically the same everywhere, and is pressuring foreign companies to help.

“On July 1, China’s legislature passed a new security law asserting the nation’s sovereignty extends into cyberspace and calling for network technology to be “controllable.” A week later, China released a draft law to tighten controls over the domestic Internet, including codifying the power to cut access during public-security emergencies.Other draft laws under consideration would encourage Chinese companies to find local replacements for technology equipment purchased abroad and force foreign vendors to give local authorities encryption keys that would let them control the equipment.

China Digital Times notes that this year, China has become ever more assertive in asserting its alleged “right” to control the internet within its’ borders. “Since the start of 2015, authorities have pushed even harder to realize this vision at every level from international norms and Internet traffic down to software and the hardware it runs on. At the Council on Foreign Relations, Alex Grigsby noted the submission to the U.N. earlier this month of a proposed International Code of Conduct on Information Security by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The document is an updated version of one previously submitted in 2011. Overall, the new text seems to simply update the 2011 code to take into account developments that have occurred since then. The new code references the 2012-2013 report of the group of governmental experts (GGE) on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security and the UN Human Rights Council’s Internet freedom resolution. Not surprisingly, Moscow and Beijing have altered or selectively quoted the text to promote their longstanding positions on cyber issues, such as the need for new international law for cyberspace and the concept of ‘cyber sovereignty.’ For example, the code references a line in paragraph sixteen of the GGE report that says that  ‘additional norms could be developed over time’ without mentioning the same GGE report stresses that ‘international law, and in particular the Charter, is applicable and essential’ to promoting peace and security in cyberspace. The same thing happens in article seven of the code, which begins by referring to the Human Rights Council’s affirmation that ‘the same rights people have offline must also be protected online,’ but then concludes on how those rights may be restricted to protect national security, public order, health or morals.”

Clearly, there is a disturbing trend towards censorship emanating from several of the key powers involved in international bodies that the White House is moving towards giving greater internet authority to.

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The political angst of America’s blacks

The long struggle through slavery and segregation is over, and, quite bluntly, more economic and political progress was rightly to be expected for America’s blacks following the civil rights legislation and court decisions of the 1960’s. Indeed, since 1972, blacks have experienced unemployment at roughly twice the rate of whites.

Many of those who blame continued racism for the poor results are themselves responsible. Rather than taking the politically appropriate and clever approach of continuously playing off the Democrat and Republican parties to gain goals, the black establishment sold itself in virtual lock step to the Democrats. It was an odd fit that never produced the necessary results. Those with a sense of history can rightly express confusion at the alliance of black leaders with the party that supported slavery and segregation.

Republican connection with the black community extended beyond those twin evils. As noted in a Guardian  review, “With Republicans having trouble with minorities, some like to point out that the party has a long history of standing up for civil rights compared to Democrats. Democrats, for example, were less likely to vote for the civil rights bills of the 1950s and 1960s. Democrats were more likely to filibuster.”

There is more to Republicans and civil rights as well.  Rather forgotten is the fact that 57 years ago this month, Republican president Dwight Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Democrat social welfare policies do not envision blacks as equals, with the same capability to advance economically and politically as all other ethnic groups. Rather than embrace policies that provided more opportunities, the Democrat leadership opted instead for social welfare programs that provided no path to economic equality but did buy votes from those at the bottom of the economic ladder who saw no other way to increase their standard of living. That strategy remains a hallmark of the Obama Administration.

Those policies, and the federal budgetary and economic spinoffs they produced, hold significant responsibility for the roadblocks blacks have faced in moving into the economic mainstream (after segregation was ended) in the same manner that other ethnics groups have.

Some prominent Democrats understood the folly of this approach. New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote about the devastating effect on the black family that these policies produced.

The mainstream media, which has generally tilted towards the left, has opted to give the mantle of “black leaders” only to those public figures who give their support to the Democrat Party. Accomplished figures in government and politics such as Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Alan West, and others, who are Republicans, are largely overlooked as “black leaders,” while ignoble figured such as Al Sharpton get abundant airtime.

The counterproductive nature and, some would say, hypocrisy of adopting social welfare policies in combination with die hard loyalty to the Democrat leadership can be seen, oddly enough, in the antagonistic relations between the radical group Black Lives Matter and the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders.
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Sanders’s positions represent the ultimate of what the black leadership—at least, the portion of it that gets publicity and wields political power—wants. He says the correct things, according to their left-wing viewpoint, and rarely misses an opportunity to blame racism or capitalism for their complaints. He is the most stringent advocate for the “progressive” policies that guide them.

The assault on what would appear to be their ideological ally highlights unfortunate personal opportunism on the part of some black leaders. Sanders is outside of the mainstream of Democrat leadership, and is therefore open to attack.

Barack Obama, as the first president from the black community, shares the hard-left ideology that characterizes his party. His policies have harmed, according to financial planner and radio personality Charles Butler (A black American) the black community more than any other group. Butler particularly points to the President’s immigration policies, which has added to the unemployment woes of the black community, particularly those of young people in inner cities.

The harm from progressive policies is also seen in education.  Policy.Mic  notes:

“In the 2012 election, minorities turned out in droves to vote for progressive Democrats. But have progressive policies really served to benefit minorities? In the field of education, the answer is a resounding no. Progressives have long opposed school choice. In 2009, Obama and other Democrats killed a program which gave low-income Washington, D.C. students money for private-school tuition, leaving only existing scholarship recipients to continue. Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan actually rescinded 216 scholarships. Imagine how those parents and students felt when they received word from the Department of Education.

“In 2011, Republicans in Congress introduced a bill re-authorizing the program. The White House opposed the bill because it expanded private-school voucher programs. They argued that the ‘private school vouchers were not an effective way to improve student achievement.’

“It seems the Obama administration didn’t bother to read its own Education Department’s study which found ‘a positive and statistically significant impact on the average reading test scores of the students in the study,’ while performing on par with public-school students in math. The voucher students graduated at a rate of 91%, more than 20 points higher than those who sought a voucher but either didn’t get one or didn’t enroll in the program after being accepted.” The White House was eventually pressured to relent.

According to Deneen Borelli (who is black) writing in the Washington Times  “Objective analysis would conclude that President Obama’s progressive policies have failed blacks, leaving them frustrated and vulnerable to the social agitation by Mr. Sharpton. The sad truth is Mr. Obama’s agenda includes policies that preferentially harm blacks.”

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Is the U.S. surrendering the Arctic?

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry , Moscow is claiming approximately 1.2 million square kilometers  of the Arctic, 350 nautical miles from the coast. The areas include the Lomonosov Ridge, Mendeleev-Alpha Rise and Chukchi Plateau. Moscow wants the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, which opposed a similar attempt by the Kremlin in 2002, to consider the matter this year, but a spokesperson for the Commission indicated the issue will not arise for about seven months.

The Arctic is a vital area both for strategic and economic purposes. It is believed to possess a quarter of the planet’s energy supplies.

Moscow has significantly increased its military presence at the top of the world, reopening former Soviet Union cold war bases and developing at least ten new sites the Kremlin calls rescue stations in the region. In 2007, one of its submarines dropped a canister with a Russian flag in the area to symbolize its claim.

Moscow’s military aircraft have flown provocatively close to Arctic-area territories belonging to NATO members.

According to Russia Direct, “Russia’s claims on …vast swaths of territory in the Arctic are reinforced by its ability to project force in the region. Its fleet of several dozens of icebreakers, including nuclear, as compared to America’s six icebreakers, [only one of which is truly Arctic-capable] gives Russia an economic and military advantage in the Arctic. The Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in charge of the defense industry, Dmitry Rogozin, stated that Russia has already launched the construction of a new nuclear icebreaker fleet and that three units will start their operations by 2017, 2019 and 2020, respectively.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told Fox News  earlier this month “Right now, the Russians are playing chess in the Arctic and our Administration still seems to think it’s tic-tac-toe.” China is now also entering into the fray, constructing its own icebreaker as part of its massive naval buildup.

As the threat unfolds, the U.S. is reducing its Army forces in the region. Sen. Sullivan along with other members of the Alaska delegation recently submitted a letter to U.S. Army Secretary John McHugh on the force reduction:
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 “In accordance with our Congressional responsibility to provide oversight, we request the documentation used by senior U.S. Army leadership to make this strategically short-sighted decision. In our view, the current threat environment and the location of those threats does not align with the U.S. Army’s decision to remove forces from Alaska.

 “As a delegation, we share the concerns expressed by Generals Joe Dunford, Paul Selva, Mark Milley, and Robert Neller about Russia’s threat to U.S. national security.  Unfortunately, we believe the U.S. Army failed to fully consider the importance of Alaska’s Army forces in countering Russian emergence as a leading threat, a fact stated by numerous senior Department of Defense leaders…

 “As you are aware, the 4-25 Airborne Bridge Combat Team (ABCT) can respond to most crisis areas in the Northern Hemisphere faster than anywhere else in the continental U.S. Additionally, we believe that Alaska is home to some of the world’s greatest, most abundant, topographically-challenging, and climate-diverse joint training areas.  However, it has come to our attention that Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) scored in the bottom third of the U.S. Army’s Military Value Analysis (MVA).  Needless to say, this modeling perplexes us.”

Further, as the New York Analysis of Policy & Government recently noted, the U.S. has only two icebreakers, while Russia has forty. The President has stated he will try to deliver only a single new icebreaker by 2022.

The New York Times reports that Coast Guard Commandant Paul F. Zukunft has noted that “We have been for some time clamoring about our nation’s lack of capacity to sustain any meaningful presence in the Arctic.”

Despite widespread concern the U.S. State Department appears relatively unconcerned.  In response to press inquiries about Russia’s growing presence and military maneuvers, a senior state department official stated: “I get intelligence briefings regularly and I’m watching what the Russians are doing. Most of what I have seen in terms of their buildup, in terms of improving infrastructure along the Northern Sea Route, are things that I think the United States should be doing as well – building infrastructure, putting in search-and-rescue capabilities, improving communications capabilities in the North. So I’m not troubled by most of what I see – let me emphasize most of what I see. Arctic maneuvers, military operations, I’m not – I have not seen anything that goes much above and beyond what we’ve seen in the past decade or so from the Russians. What has happened is, for instance, the Norwegians and the Russians have been conducting joint military exercises up until when the sanctions were invoked. Because of the sanctions, we’re not allowed to have military-to-military contact and operations, so they’ve done it separately. When the Norwegians did their exercises, it got no notice. When the Russians did their exercises, it was portrayed as Russian aggression. I’m not sure that they’ve done anything more than they’ve done in the past, and they have a right to take necessary steps to preserve their sovereignty of the waters that they’re responsible for.”

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U.S. economy faces employment, trade, & national security crises

The just released report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) features a very slight improvement in the “U-3,” the generally used unemployment statistic. However, an objective analysis points to an American economy that is deeply troubled, and not improving.

According to the BLS. “Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 173,000 in August, and the unemployment rate edged down to 5.1 percent. The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in August at 6.5 million. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.”

Job gains occurred in health care, social assistance and financial activities. Manufacturing and mining lost jobs. While the gains in health care, social assistance and financial activities  were, although very minimal, welcome, the reality is that a deeper examination of the statistics and the implications for the economy present a picture of a troubled economy. The more inclusive “U-6” number, which includes a more comprehensive look at unemployment, remains in double digits at 10.3%. This reflects the fact that persons employed only part time because they couldn’t find full time jobs increased by 158,000.

The divide between those engaged in productive labor and those out of the workforce is worse than last year at this time. The job participation rate is at extremely low 62.6%, down from 63% a year ago. The number of those not in the labor force edged up from 94,031, a worrisome increase from August 2014’s 91,794.

One of the most important portions of the economy continued to decline. The crucial manufacturing sector saw a jobs drop of 17,000. Mining employment also was reduced by 9,000. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, about one in six private sector jobs is in the manufacturing sector.

The challenges of the American manufacturing sector are reflected in a poor trade balance.  According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis the U.S. goods and services deficit in July increased $10.6 billion, or 3.6 percent, from the same period in 2014. Exports decreased $47.0 billion or 3.5 percent. Imports decreased by a smaller amount, $36.4 billion or 2.2 percent. In 2006, according to Trading Economics, the U.S. had set a record low trade gap, and with increased domestic production of energy it was not unreasonable to assume that trade deficits would continue to be lowered.  However, the impact of American manufacturing decline, in part due to concessions made to China by the Clinton Administration and the fact that the U.S. maintains the developed world’s highest corporate tax levels has dashed that optimism.
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The loss of vitality in the manufacturing sector is more than just an economic problem. The Alliance for American Manufacturing  notes national security concerns as well:

“America’s military communications systems increasingly rely on network equipment from China, putting our entire defense at risk. A 2012 House intelligence committee investigation, for example, found that the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, which had been working to expand in the United States, posed a major threat to the U.S. because its equipment could be used to spy on Americans — as well as U.S. defense systems and companies.

“New America Foundation senior fellow Peter Singer warned military leaders in 2015 that ‘America’s most advanced fighter jets might be blown from the sky by their Chinese-made microchips and Chinese hackers easily could worm their way into the military’s secretive intelligence service.’ …

“But it isn’t just on the cyberfront where America is giving its defense away. The United States increasingly relies on foreign nations to provide the materials needed for our defense supply chain.

“Not a single high-tech magnet — crucial to military hardware — is Made in America. Roughly 91 percent of the rare earth element needed for night-vision googles is from China. The United States produces just 2 percent of Lithium ion batteries, used in everything from unmanned aerial drones to bomb disposal robots and other gear.”

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China’s warships near Alaska elicits White House yawn

The news of an unusual deployment of five Chinese vessels, including an amphibious attack ship near the coast of Alaska is the latest in a disturbing pattern of militarily aggressive moves by Beijing’s navy. As it has in the past, the White House continues to claim that these increasingly belligerent acts are of no concern.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest, in response to press questions, stated: “They [the Department of Defense] have positively identified a number of Chinese naval vessels in that region, but they have also — based on their analysis, they have not detected any sort of threat or threatening activities.”

The question is, when will the White House actually recognize that a threat exists?

A recent Defense Tech  article reported that the Chinese Navy will outnumber its U.S. counterpart by 2020. Combined with extraordinary new military technological developments, such as the Dong Feng 21 anti-ship ballistic missile, and the continuing weakened state of the U.S. Navy (which has shrunk from 600 ships to 254, and has also suffered personnel losses due to White House-encouraged retirements) America’s maritime power is in deep trouble.

The numbers tell their own story. China’s fleet will grow to 351 ships within five years. The imbalance in submarines is particularly acute. House Armed Services Committee member Randy Forbes says Beijing will have an 82 to 32 advantage in subs.

Any growth in the reduced U.S. Navy remains in doubt. President Obama’s proposal to redeploy ships from other parts of the world to the Pacific to counter the Chinese threat no longer appears viable for a number of reasons. These include the fact that the Navy simply doesn’t have sufficient numbers to make this effective, as well as the growing presence of other threats that will require those ships to be on station elsewhere. Russia is also enhancing its naval power, part of the massive growth in armed strength ordered by Vladimir Putin, and is also re-opening cold war era naval facilities in Latin America and the Arctic. Iran continues to threaten American vessels in the strategically vital Straits of Hormuz. (Al Jazeera Quotes an Iran commander saying that his fleet can destroy U.S. warship in 50 seconds) North Korea also continues to be a threat.
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China’s Dong Feng 21 missile,a land based weapon that destroy an aircraft carrier or other large ship from 900 miles away, is a major threat. The Naval Institute Blog, described the U.S. Navy’s reaction to this device  as a near-panic reaction:

“The Navy’s reaction is telling, because it essentially equals a radical change in direction based on information that has created a panic inside the bubble. For a major military service to panic due to a new weapon system, clearly a mission kill weapon system, either suggests the threat is legitimate or the leadership of the Navy is legitimately unqualified. There really aren’t many gray spaces in evaluating the reaction by the Navy…the data tends to support the legitimacy of the threat.” The land based missile can effectively destroy an aircraft carrier or other large warship from 900 miles away.

Concern over the existence of China’s increasingly large and highly capable fleet is matched by the use it has made of its growing power. Two salient examples exemplify the challenge.

Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the commander of U.S. Pacific Command recently stated China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea is an issue the American public must know about and the United States must address. He noted that in an 18 month span, China has reclaimed almost 3,000 acres of rocky outcroppings in the vital South China Sea. Beijing intends to use the locations to assert control over vital shipping lanes. According to the Department of Defense, “more than $5.3 trillion in global sea-based trade relies on unimpeded sea lanes through the South China Sea, adding that the Strait of Malacca alone sees more than 25 percent of oil shipments and 50 percent of all natural gas transits each day. This is made possible through the regional countries’ adherence to longstanding customary international law, which protects freedom of navigation, he added.”

China’s  occupation of portions of the Philippines exclusive economic zone, (see the New York Analysis of Policy & Government’s full review of this issue) provides another example of Beijing’s vigorous use of its regional naval superiority. Its intimidation against Japan and Vietnam are other salient examples.  In each of these areas, the Unites States has failed to support the nations, some staunch allies, victimized by China.

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New York Analysis on Obama’s Foreign Policy

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The Cyber Threat

Speaking at the 2015 USSTRATCOM Deterrence Symposium recently, Dr. Brad Roberts, who served as  Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy in the first Obama Administration, stated that cyber warfare capability is a key operational concept.

The New York Analysis of Policy & Budget reported in 2013 that “America faces a number of cyberspace threats. The most serious are from those wishing to engage in espionage to steal both military and technological secrets, and from those who wish to turn the nation’s own computer systems against it by dismantling defense systems and committing sabotage against key civilian infrastructure. Cyber attacks have escalated by 1,700% since 2009, costing intellectual property theft losses over $400 billion.

An armed attack following a cyber assault would be exceptionally effective. Key defense systems could be disabled, leading to a military that is deaf, dumb, and blind, defending a nation that may have its electrical, energy, water, transportation and other crucial systems heavily disrupted.

General Keith Alexander, the former commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, openly worried that the United States was not adequately prepared for a cyber attack. He noted that on a scale of  one to ten in preparedness, the U.S. was at about a three. He emphasized that the time to stop a cyber attack is less than a minute–far less time than preparing for an incoming missile attack.”

The Fireeye organization ‘s report, “Gazing into the Cyber Security Future” notes that “As the technology landscape evolves and attackers continue to adapt, we’re going to see new vulnerabilities to mobile, new operating systems and the cloud—and new ways for attackers to exploit these weaknesses. Preventing every breach is impossible.”

James R. Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, reviewed  the 2015 cyber threat environment:

“Cyber threats to US national and economic security are increasing in frequency, scale, sophistication, and severity of impact. The ranges of cyber threat actors, methods of attack, targeted systems, and victims are also expanding. Overall, the unclassified information and communication technology (ICT) networks that support US Government, military, commercial, and social activities remain vulnerable to espionage and/or disruption. However, the likelihood of a catastrophic attack from any particular actor is remote at this time. Rather than a “Cyber Armageddon” scenario that debilitates the entire US infrastructure, we envision something different. We foresee an ongoing series of low-to-moderate level cyber attacks from a variety of sources over time, which will impose cumulative costs on US economic competitiveness and national security.

  • A growing number of computer forensic studies by industry experts strongly suggest that several nations—including Iran and North Korea—have undertaken offensive cyber operations against private sector targets to support their economic and foreign policy objectives, at times concurrent with political crises.

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Risk. Despite ever-improving network defenses, the diverse possibilities for remote hacking intrusions, supply chain operations to insert compromised hardware or software, and malevolent activities by human insiders will hold nearly all ICT systems at risk for years to come. In short, the cyber threat cannot be eliminated; rather, cyber risk must be managed. Moreover, the risk calculus employed by some private sector entities does not adequately account for foreign cyber threats or the systemic interdependencies between different critical infrastructure sectors.

Costs. During 2014, we saw an increase in the scale and scope of reporting on malevolent cyber activity that can be measured by the amount of corporate data stolen or deleted, personally identifiable information (PII) compromised, or remediation costs incurred by US victims.

For example:

  • After the 2012-13 distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on the US financial sector, JPMorgan Chase (JPMorgan) announced plans for annual cyber security expenditures of $250 million by the end of 2014. After the company suffered a hacking intrusion in 2014, JPMorgan’s CEO said he would probably double JPMorgan’s annual computer security budget within the next five years.
  • The 2014 data breach at Home Depot exposed information from 56 million credit/debit cards and 53 million customer email addresses. Home Depot estimated the cost of the breach to be $62 million.
  • In 2014, unauthorized computer intrusions were detected on the networks of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) as well as its contractors, US Investigations Services (USIS) and KeyPoint 2 Government Solutions. The two contractors were involved in processing sensitive PII related to national security clearances for Federal Government employees.
  • In August 2014, the US company, Community Health Systems, informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that it believed hackers “originating from China” had stolen PII on 4.5 million individuals.

Attribution. Although cyber operators can infiltrate or disrupt targeted ICT networks, most can no longer assume that their activities will remain undetected. Nor can they assume that if detected, they will be able to conceal their identities. Governmental and private sector security professionals have made significant advances in detecting and attributing cyber intrusions.

  • In May 2014, the US Department of Justice indicted five officers from China’s Peoples’ Liberation Army on charges of hacking US companies.
  • In December 2014, computer security experts reported that members of an Iranian organization were responsible for computer operations targeting US military, transportation, public utility, and other critical infrastructure networks.

Deterrence. Numerous actors remain undeterred from conducting economic cyber espionage or perpetrating cyber attacks. The absence of universally accepted and enforceable norms of behavior in cyberspace has contributed to this situation. The motivation to conduct cyber attacks and cyber espionage will probably remain strong because of the relative ease of these operations and the gains they bring to the perpetrators. The result is a cyber environment in which multiple actors continue to test their adversaries’ technical capabilities, political resolve, and thresholds. The muted response by most victims to cyber attacks has created a permissive environment in which low-level attacks can be used as a coercive tool short of war, with relatively low risk of retaliation. Additionally, even when a cyber attack can be attributed to a specific actor, the forensic attribution often requires a significant amount of time to complete. Long delays between the cyber attack and determination of attribution likewise reinforce a permissive environment.

Threat Actors:  Politically motivated cyber attacks are now a growing reality, and foreign actors are reconnoitering and developing access to US critical infrastructure systems, which might be quickly exploited for disruption if an adversary’s intent became hostile. In addition, those conducting cyber espionage are targeting US government, military, and commercial networks on a daily basis. These threats come from a range of actors, including: (1) nation states with highly sophisticated cyber programs (such as Russia or China), (2) nations with lesser technical capabilities but possibly more disruptive intent (such as Iran or North Korea), (3) profit-motivated criminals, and (4) ideologically motivated hackers or extremists. Distinguishing between state and non-state actors within the same country is often difficult—especially when those varied actors actively collaborate, tacitly cooperate, condone criminal activity that only harms foreign victims, or utilize similar cyber tools.

Russia. Russia’s Ministry of Defense is establishing its own cyber command, which—according to senior Russian military officials—will be responsible for conducting offensive cyber activities, including  propaganda operations and inserting malware into enemy command and control systems. Russia’s armed forces are also establishing a specialized branch for computer network operations.

  • Computer security studies assert that unspecified Russian cyber actors are developing means to access industrial control systems (ICS) remotely. These systems manage critical infrastructures such as electric power grids, urban mass-transit systems, air-traffic control, and oil and gas distribution networks. These unspecified Russian actors have successfully compromised the product supply chains of three ICS vendors so that customers download exploitative malware directly from the vendors’ websites along with routine software updates, according to private sector cyber security experts.

China. Chinese economic espionage against US companies remains a significant issue. The “advanced persistent threat” activities continue despite detailed private sector reports, public indictments, and US demarches, according to a computer security study. China is an advanced cyber actor; however, Chinese hackers often use less sophisticated cyber tools to access targets. Improved cyber defenses would require hackers to use more sophisticated skills and make China’s economic espionage more costly and difficult to conduct.

Iran. Iran very likely values its cyber program as one of many tools for carrying out asymmetric but proportional retaliation against political foes, as well as a sophisticated means of collecting intelligence. Iranian actors have been implicated in the 2012-13 DDOS attacks against US financial institutions and in the February 2014 cyber attack on the Las Vegas Sands casino company.

North Korea. North Korea is another state actor that uses its cyber capabilities for political objectives. The North Korean Government was responsible for the November 2014 cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE), which stole corporate information and introduced hard drive erasing malware into the company’s network infrastructure, according to the FBI. The attack coincided with the planned release of a SPE feature film satire that depicted the planned assassination of the North Korean president.

Terrorists. Terrorist groups will continue to experiment with hacking, which could serve as the foundation for developing more advanced capabilities. Terrorist sympathizers will probably conduct low level cyber attacks on behalf of terrorist groups and attract attention of the media, which might exaggerate the capabilities and threat posed by these actors.

Integrity of Information

Most of the public discussion regarding cyber threats has focused on the confidentiality and availability of information; cyber espionage undermines confidentiality, whereas denial-of-service operations and data deletion attacks undermine availability. In the future, however, we might also see more cyber operations that will change or manipulate electronic information in order to compromise its integrity (i.e. accuracy and reliability) instead of deleting it or disrupting access to it. Decision making by senior government officials (civilian and military), corporate executives, investors, or others will be impaired if they cannot trust the information they are receiving.

  • Successful cyber operations targeting the integrity of information would need to overcome any institutionalized checks and balances designed to prevent the manipulation of data, for example, market monitoring and clearing functions in the financial sector.

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Illegal immigration presents budget, crime, and health concerns

Illegal immigration is having a significant effect on the already weakened budgets of U.S. states and cities, as well as directly impacting the health and safety of the American population.

The sheer numbers are staggering. According to the Center for Immigration Studies,  the immigrant population, legal and illegal, hit a record 42.1 million in second quarter of 2015, driven largely by a surge in illegals coming across the southern border, “an increase of 1.7 million since the same quarter of 2014. Growth in the immigrant population in the last year was led by a 740,000 increase in the number of Mexican immigrants. After falling or growing little in recent years, the number of Mexican immigrants again seems to be growing significantly. Among the CIS findings:

  • The nation’s immigrant (foreign-born) population, which includes legal and illegal immigrants, grew by 4.1 million from the second quarter of 2011 to the second quarter of 2015 …Immigrants are 13.3 percent of the nation’s total population — the largest share in 105 years.

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  • Growth in the last year was led by a rebound in the number of Mexican immigrants, which increased by 740,000 from 2014 to 2015 — accounting for 44 percent of the increase in the total immigrant population in the last year.
  • The total Mexican immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached 12.1 million in the second quarter of 2015 — the highest quarterly total ever.
  • Prior research has indicated that net migration (the number coming vs. leaving) from Mexico had fallen to zero; the recent growth indicates that the period of zero net migration has ended.
  • In addition to Mexico, growth in the immigrant population was led by a 449,000 increase in the last year from countries in Latin America other than Mexico.
  • The Department of Homeland Security and other researchers have estimated that eight in 10 illegal immigrants are from Mexico and Latin America, so the increase in immigrants from these countries is an indication that illegal immigration has begun growing again.
  • The number of immigrants in the United States is now enormous, but it must be recognized that most immigrants, including those from Latin America, are in the country legally. Absent a change in legal immigration policy, the immigrant population will continue to increase.”

According to the Congressional Budget Office,

“State and local governments incur costs for providing services to unauthorized immigrants and have limited options for avoiding or minimizing those costs… Rules governing many federal programs, as well as decisions handed down by various courts, limit the authority of state and local governments to avoid or constrain the costs of providing services to unauthorized immigrants. For example, both state and federal courts have ruled that states may not refuse to provide free public education to a student on the basis of his or her immigration status. Furthermore, many states have their own statutory or constitutional requirements concerning the provision of certain services to needy residents…

“Costs were concentrated in programs that make up a large percentage of total state spending—specifically, those associated with education, health care, and law enforcement… The tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants.”

The Federation for American Immigration Reform “estimates the annual costs of illegal immigration at the federal, state and local level to be about $113 billion; nearly $29 billion at the federal level and $84 billion at the state and local level…tax collections from illegal alien workers, both those in the above-ground economy and those in the underground economy… do not come close to the level of expenditures and, in any case, are misleading as an offset because over time unemployed and underemployed U.S. workers would replace illegal alien workers…

“Education for the children of illegal aliens constitutes the single largest cost to taxpayers, at an annual price tag of nearly $52 billion. Nearly all of those costs are absorbed by state and local governments.

“At the federal level, about one-third of outlays are matched by tax collections from illegal aliens. At the state and local level, an average of less than 5 percent of the public costs associated with illegal immigration is recouped through taxes collected from illegal aliens.

“Most illegal aliens do not pay income taxes. Among those who do, much of the revenues collected are refunded to the illegal aliens when they file tax returns. Many are also claiming tax credits resulting in payments from the U.S. Treasury. With many state budgets in deficit, policymakers have an obligation to look for ways to reduce the fiscal burden of illegal migration. California, facing a budget deficit of $14.4 billion in 2010-2011, is hit with an estimated $21.8 billion in annual expenditures on illegal aliens. New York’s $6.8 billion deficit is smaller than its $9.5 billion in yearly illegal alien costs.”

Crime and public health, as well as budgets, have been directly affected by illegal immigration.

In FY 2013, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE)

“conducted 133,551 removals of individuals apprehended in the interior of the U.S.; 82 percent of all interior removals had been previously convicted of a crime. 59 percent of all ICE removals, a total of 216,810, had been previously convicted of a crime. ICE apprehended and removed 110,115 criminals removed from the interior of the U.S. ICE removed 106,695 criminals apprehended at the border while attempting to unlawfully enter the U.S.”

Health concerns are also significant. Judicial Watch Reports that “illegal immigrant minors entering the U.S. are bringing serious diseases—including swine flu, dengue fever, possibly Ebola virus and tuberculosis—that present a danger to the American public as well as the Border Patrol agents forced to care for the kids, according to a U.S. Congressman who is also medical doctor.

“This has created a ‘severe and dangerous’ crisis, says the Georgia lawmaker, Phil Gingrey. Most of the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) are coming from Central America and they’re importing infectious diseases considered to be largely eradicated in this country. Additionally, many of the migrants lack basic vaccinations such as those to prevent chicken pox or measles, leaving America’s young children and the elderly particularly susceptible…Specifically, tuberculosis has become a dangerous issue at both the border and the camps, according to several sources cited in the story. One source confirms that ‘the amount of tuberculosis is astonishing.”